Thisarticlewas originally published on.cultby Helene Le Gascoin, Hayley Kuhl, and Emma Tracey.
.cult is a Berlin-based community platform for developers.
Of course, there are huge variations in how developers evaluate their happiness depending on where they are located.
Globally, Northern and Western European countries rank as the countries with the happiest developers.
Canada ranks joint 8th with Germany and is the only non-European among the top.
Given the limitations of our sample, we compared the findings to theWorld Happiness Report 2020(WHR).
The dominance of the Nordics in both reports is a striking similarity.
Indeed,sustained happiness is connected to a high perceived level of stability and democracy.
The education system focuses ondeveloping autonomy and self-determination rather than obedience, resulting in happier people and better outcomes.
Career indicators ranked highly in importance.
The importance of work to happiness is not just true for developers.
This is true across age, gender and country.
Healthcare and safety also ranked very highly as indicators of happiness amongst developers.
Health and happiness are self-reinforcing, happier people tend to be healthier.
75% of developers cited this factor as very important, and 39% consider themselves very satisfied.
In our results, developers talk about how work-life balance can negatively impact their happiness and mental health.
Female developers place higher importance on work-life balance than male developers.
This is suggestive of a broader trend of age discrimination in the tech industry.
Company culture in tech companies is not typically formed with more experienced developers in mind.
Companies want to build a fun culture, which can be isolating for some.
But how do you go about creating an environment and culture within which developers can thrive?
Developers say they want to be part of passionate, diverse, cooperative, and supportive teams.
Contributions to solutions are great when shared with other people.
The impact of management should not be overlooked.
I get a boost to my esteem from internal and external recognition and appreciation.
Its important how the company values my input, effort, advice and vision.
There is a difference, however, between recognition and appreciation.
Recognition is conditional, finite and in the past we are praised for specific work we have accomplished.
And autonomy is connected not just to happiness, but also to motivation.
We need to adopt software craftsmanship rules and collective code ownership on a bigger scale.
Unit tests, SOLID, code quality should not be questioned.
I want some sort of feeling of personal ownership of what I am working on.
Autonomy and the ability to be more than a code monkey.
Developers are creative problem solvers.
Meaningful work
Developers generally tend to be a well-intentioned bunch.
Open source, for example, aspires to make knowledge free and widely available for all.
Volunteer-run programs that help people learn to code exist in most major cities.
And when it comes to day-to-day work, developers know purpose and meaning is important.
I want the feeling of being useful.
Id love to work in a place that has no office politics.
My company took an active approach to that in 2019 and I was very happy with the results.
Learning Opportunities: It takes a lifetime to learn and a good developer dies learning.
We identified two types of learning that are important to developers.
One is creative or technical learning and the second is career growth.
In the former, developers learn by doing, either autonomously or through mentorship.
Forboth creative learning and career growth, developers need time.
Career growth is a priority for many developers.
According to StackOverflow, only one in four developers want to become managers.
Otherwise, companies will lose talented people:
Stagnation in the same position doesnt make a developer happy.
Recentresearch pinpointed $95,000 as the exact figureat which salary no longer increases our sense of well-being.
In our findings, developers described salary as the second-least important factor in establishing happiness at work.
Geography also plays a role in determining salary satisfaction.
Certain Eastern European countries have large outsourcing industries, which could mean higher salaries than the average person.
Frontend engineers had the best jobs in 2020, as measured by demand and satisfaction, according to Glassdoor.
Once again, developers in Southern European countries get the short end of the stick.
When starting their careers, pay is almost equal.
Regional variance draws a more extreme picture.
In no region are male and female developers paid equally.
In every other region, men are paid more than women.
The largest pay gaps are North and South America.
After that point, satisfaction increases again slightly, but never again reaches the satisfaction levels of new joiners.
Developers are frustrated with companies who rush into technical, infrastructure or architecture decisions without developer input.
The solution to dissatisfaction over tech stack?
We need to adopt software craftsmanship rules and collective code ownership on a bigger scale.
And take happiness seriously; its not just an ethical imperative, its aneconomicone.
Snapshot Quality of Life
Where we live affects every aspect of our being.
It affects our perception, our politics, our material well-being and our happiness.
This is followed by education and childcare, and then cost of living.
Developers from Eastern Europe were most dissatisfied with their access to healthcare.
According to the European Commission,public health spending in Eastern Europeis well below EU average.
I feel like almost all developers go through depression and anxiety at some stage.
Mental health has been a topic in the developer world for many years.
Mental health problems are one of themain causes of the overall disease burden worldwide.
Despite this, 70% of people who need mental health serviceslack access to care.
Developers located in Denmark, Austria and Norway top our ranking.
In 2018 and 2019,ViennatoppedThe Global Liveability Index.
Likewise, the city earned the top place on theMercer Quality of Living City Rankingfor ten consecutive years.
Out of a possible 100 points on the Economists report, Vienna scored 99.1.
Safety is the most important factor determining developers happiness within their societies.
Developers located in Northern Europe and Western Europe are most satisfied with the safety levels in their countries.
In theGPI 2020, European countries account for17 of the top 25 countries.
According to the GPI, Iceland is the highest-ranking country both globally and in Europe.
Turkey is the only European country to be ranked in the bottom 25 least peaceful countries.
Safety ismore of a priority for female developers than male developers.
74% of female developers consider it very important, compared to 54% of men.
In fact, female developers give higher weight than male developers to all indicators of social freedom.
Scientists call thisThe Reminiscence Bump, orDeclinism,and could be a plausible explanation for the results shown below.
The following maps show that we are still a long way from a safe global society for all.
Snapshot Community
Humans are social creatures.
In this section we examine developer attitudes towards professional communities, friendships, and recreational opportunities.
By 2019,more than 44 million repositories existed on GitHub alone.
The British Isles is where developers are happiest with the communities they have access to.
Our research highlights how developer happiness drives productivity, motivation, and code quality.
We showthe importance of work-life balance, positive work environments, and learning opportunities.
Our data also highlights somedisparities between segments of the developer population.
Geographically, Northern European developers are the happiest.
We also found differences in how male and female developers attribute their happiness.Female developers are happier overall.
And despite a noticeable pay gap, female developers are more satisfied with their salaries than their male counterparts.
Whatsmore,female developers consider all social freedom factors to be more important to their happiness than men do.
Story by.cult
.cult by Honeypot is a Berlin-based community platform for developers.
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